After
a long wait of nearly 10 months since the United States Garbage Pail
Kids All-New Series 5 was released, Topps released the All-New Series
6. Topps promoted the All-New Series 6 similarly to how they
promoted the previous All-New Series. Unlike the unadvertised
All-New Series 5, Topps had advertised the All-New Series 6 in a few
different magazines. While promoting and advertising the series
was very important, this time it was not enough to make a significant
difference in sales. This may have been due to the way they promoted
the series and the magazines they chose to advertise in. To make
the product more appealing to children and to go back to Topps' involvement
with candy products, Topps decided to include a flat piece of pink
bubble gum in every pack of the All-New Series 6. Putting bubble
gum in every pack was similar to what Topps had done in the original
Garbage Pail Kids series. The main difference between the bubble
gum from the original series and the bubble gum from the All-New
Series 6 was that the All-New Series 6 bubble gum came shrink-wrapped
in plastic. The shrink-wrap prevented the bubble gum from staining
and damaging the cards. The
All-New Series 6 had two relatively-easy insert card sets to collect,
and that meant the cost to collect them was low, which was a huge plus
to the younger collectors and those on a limited collecting-budget. An
activity card set of 12 and a magnet card set of 9 were the only two
insert sets to collect for the series. Even for young children,
the activities shown on the activity cards were completely ridiculous. Also,
no collector would actually damage their activity cards just to do
the activities shown on them. Just like the All-New Series 5,
the magnet card set for the All-New Series 6 unfortunately reused artwork
from the original Garbage Pail Kids series. Collectors like to
see different artwork and ideas for each series because those elements
help keep the product interesting. Both of the insert card sets
were very weak selling-points to the series. There were 5 different
bonus cards for the All-New Series 6, and they were not overly expensive
to obtain because 3 of the 5 bonus cards came inside of the blister
packs instead of the bonus boxes. Topps lowered the number of
packs in each of the blister packs from 4 to 2, which helped cut the
cost to collect the blister pack bonus cards. Another
minus to series was that there still were artists who created card
front artwork that was very far off from the style guide Garbage Pail
Kids artist John Pound had created back in the All-New Series 5. Even
with the inconsistent card front artwork, the card front artwork for
the All-New Series 6 was similar in quality to the card front artwork
for the All-New Series 5. Unfortunately, there were many character
concepts for the All-New Series 6 that were the same as or similar
to character concepts from previous Garbage Pail Kids series. The
All-New Series 6 appeared to have been produced
in a smaller quantity than the previous All-New Series. Still,
the sales of the All-New Series 6 seemed to rate relatively fair. After
seeing the decline in interest and sales of the last few Garbage Pail
Kids All-New Series, it is obvious to see that the All-New Series will
not be able to continue on unless Topps made significant changes to
the product and the promotion of it.

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Excluding
the bubble gum, there were three different items found in the United
States Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 6 packs, and there was one
additional item that could only be found in the bonus boxes and blister
packs. Topps
titled the items for the series differently than what I will refer to
them as. The Stickers will be referred to as Cards, the Action
Punch-Outs / Action Punch Outs will be referred to as Activity Cards,
the Magnets will be referred to Magnet Cards, and the Bonus Stickers
will be referred to as Bonus Cards.
I used these titles to help clarify which items I am discussing.
The cards and bonus cards are actually stickers on card
backing, so I decided to continue on with the same format I had been
using on the website and refer to them as cards.

I provided samples of what the cards and
items of the series look like. The first and last cards, activity
cards, and magnet cards are shown above. There also are image overviews
of all of the cards, activity cards, and magnet cards. The card
checklist, activity card/magnet card checklist, the front and back of
the five bonus cards, sample activity card back,
sample magnet card back, and the front and back of the promo card can
also be seen above. Larger images of both sides of the activity
cards can be see under the Activity
Cards section on page 2. The
purpose of the samples and image overviews is to give you a preview of
the series. Higher
quality images of these items will not be provided on this website or
by request.

There were a total of 86 different characters
(45 different paintings) in the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New
Series 6. Tom
Bunk created 9 new paintings for the series, John
Cebollero created
3 new paintings for the series, Layron
DeJarnette created 1 new painting for the series, Luis
Diaz created 7 new paintings for the series, Brent
Engstrom created 6 new paintings for the series, Dave Gross
created 1 new painting for the series, and John
Pound created 17 new paintings for the series. Fred
Wheaton was the only new artist to work on Garbage Pail Kids paintings,
and he created 1 new painting for the series. The
characters on the activity cards were from previous Garbage Pail Kids
series, but the characters were redesigned to match the activity shown
on the activity cards. Jay
Lynch was the artist who created the artwork for the activity cards. Topps
used 6 of the characters Jay Lynch had sketched for the Mix &
Match card backs (see
Mix & Match Backs on page 2),
and the paintings for those characters were done by Scott Gross.
Even though the artists were given a style
guide to use, some of artists were still very inconsistent
with the Garbage Pail Kids artwork style. There were no significant
improvements with the overall look of the card front artwork for the
All-New Series 6 compared to the artwork for the All-New
Series 5.
The artwork style still was not at the level of consistency that
the original series had. Topps
previously used the inconsistent artwork for some of the insert cards
because they were produced in a smaller quantity than the regular cards,
but for the All-New Series 6 the inconsistent artwork was also used for
the card numbers near the end of the card set. Most Garbage Pail
Kids collectors would agree that the majority
of the artwork Tom Bunk created for the All-New Series was unfortunately
the most inconsistent (i.e., compared to the style of the characters
shown on the Garbage Pail Kids style guide) out of any of the Garbage
Pail Kids artists, and this inconsistency was most likely the reason
why Topps ended up using it for many of the insert cards (i.e., the bonus
cards).

The print version of the All-New Series
6 was similar in quality to that of the All-New Series 5. Even
though the original paintings have bright colors and a tremendous amount
of vibrancy, the print versions of the artwork appeared to look slightly
dull and dark. The original series cards were
able to maintain this quality, but the All-New Series have not yet been
able to.

There were first names used for new characters
in the All-New
Series 1, All-New
Series 2, All-New Series 3, All-New
Series 4, and All-New Series 5 that
were also used in the All-New Series 6. Out
of the 80 different new character names for the All-New Series 1, 94
different new character names for the All-New Series 2, 107 different
new character names for the All-New Series 3, 96 different new character
names for the All-New Series 4, 85 different new character names
for the All-New Series 5, and 86 different new character names for the
All-New Series 6; there were 49 repeated first names for the All-New
Series 6. There were 5 All-New Series 6 character names that were
identical to character names from previous series.

§The
names "Alien Alan", "Clawed Claude", "Cole Cut", "Mike
Strike", and "Blow Away Ray"
were used in previous series and in the All-New Series 6.*The name Scott was
used twice in the All-New Series 6.The name Paul was used in all six
of the All-New Series.

There was one printing of the United States
Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 6. There were no variations for
the printing. Some of the cards could be found with and without
tiny red marks (see the Errors and
Card Details section on page 2 for
more information), but these were considered very minor printing errors
and not variations. The
bonus cards did not come in the regular boxes, and you would have to
purchase the bonus boxes and blister packs in order to obtain them. Unlike
the bonus boxes from the previous All-New Series, the bonus boxes from
the All-New Series 6 had the bonus cards sealed inside of one of the
packs instead of sealed separately inside of a clear, cellophane wrapper. Unfortunately,
there sometimes were bonus boxes that did not contain any bonus cards
even though they were supposed to at least contain one. I
discuss more details about the packs, bonus cards/boxes, and blister
packs under the Packaging
and Contents section on page 2.

There were two different checklists for
the series. There was a card checklist and an activity card/magnet
card checklist. The card checklist was used for 4 of the card backs,
and the activity card/magnet card checklist was used for 3 of the card
backs. The card checklist numbering is left-justified and has lower-case
a's and b's. The
cards are numbered 1a to 40a and 1b to 40b, which can be very confusing
to new collectors because the numbers are the same as the original Series
1, All-New Series 1, All-New Series 2, All-New Series 3, All-New
Series 4, and All-New Series 5. The
activity card/magnet card checklist numbering was also left-justified.
The die-cuts on the cards were all the same shape. Unlike all of
the previous Garbage Pail Kids series checklists (including the original
series and the All-New Series), the All-New Series 6 checklists
had a light blue border and title font. The border and title font
color difference broke away from the traditional red border and
title font that was used for the checklists for all of the other series. Topps
had unintentionally printed all of the card backs upside-down, which
meant that after the cards were flipped over they would also have
to be turned around in order to view the checklists correctly. The
cards were not printed with asterisks on them like the original Garbage
Pail Kids series. The
cards have an extremely glossy coating on them, which is supposed to
help protect them from getting damaged. The
card finish, coloring, and thickness was consistent throughout the printing.

Topps created their first ever Garbage
Pail Kids activity cards for the All-New Series 6. The activity
cards were designed so that kids could actually play with their Garbage
Pail Kids cards. The activity cards were similar to one of the
inserts card sets from the Topps' 1993 Nicktoons. More
information about the activity cards can be found on the Activity
Cards section on page 2.

Topps created a new set of Garbage Pail
Kids magnet cards for the All-New Series 6. They were designed
just like the magnet cards from the All-New Series 5. The magnet
cards were numbered 1 to 9 and featured characters from previous Garbage
Pail Kids series.
The magnet cards had artwork from the original series. The sample
magnet card back image provided above was to show that there was only
print on the front side of the card, and the back side of the card was
just a plain magnet. As I had mentioned in the reference section
for the All-New Series 5, it would have been better if the magnet cards
had new artwork or modified artwork and something printed on both sides.
The artwork used for the 9 magnet cards came from the following series:

There were five bonus cards, and they were
numbered b15, b16, b17, b18, and b19. There were no "a"
or "b" versions of the bonus cards. Besides the numbering
and bonus card information on the backs, the bonus cards looked and felt
the same as the regular cards. The bonus cards had die-cuts and
an extremely glossy coating just like the regular cards. However,
the bonus cards are more valuable than the regular cards because they
were much more difficult to obtain and were only available in the bonus
boxes and blister packs. Topps continued the numbering sequence
starting from where the All-New Series 5 left off, but the card numbering
had a lower-case "b" for the front of the cards and an upper-case "B" for
the back of the cards.

Topps created
promo card P2 Alien Alan for the All-New Series 6 (see image above), and it
was handed out at the San Diego Comic-Con International at the Topps
booth back in July of 2006. The San Diego Comic-Con International
is a huge convention that has products from hundreds of manufacturers.
This was the third promo card that Topps had produced for Garbage Pail
Kids. It is unusual that Topps numbered the card P2 because most
manufacturers start their promo card numbers back at 1 or P1 for each
new release, but Topps continued the card numbering on from the previous
promo cards. Promo card P1 was created for the All-New
Series 3, and an unnumbered promo card was created for the All-New
Series 4 and All-New Series 5.
The promo card was the same thickness and glossiness as the regular cards.
There was no "Peel Here" arrow printed on the promo card, and
the card was not die-cut because there was no sticker portion (i.e.,
it was not a sticker on card backing). The back of the promo card
mentioned that the All-New Series 6 would be out in 2007, and it also
had the URL to Topps' official Garbage
Pail Kids website (the website is no longer up) printed on it.

Puzzle
Backs

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

There
were 5 different puzzles for the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New
Series 6. The other cards had Mix & Match backs or checklist
backs.

Instead of alphabetically numbering the
puzzles (e.g. Puzzle A, Puzzle B, Puzzle C, etc.), colors were used.
The puzzles were of characters from the series, but they did not have
the name ovals printed on them. The blue border puzzle was of 10a
Nested Ernesto / 10b Elliot Nest, the green border puzzle was of 2a Showerin'
Howard / 2b Rinsin' Vincent, the orange border puzzle was of 1a Orange
Julius / 1b Peeled Neal, the red border puzzle was of 20a Brady Back
Ribs / 20b Spare Rob, and the yellow border puzzle was of 29a Rasta Roni
Tony / 29b Spaghetti Eddy. Each puzzle, as shown above, was comprised
of 9 puzzle pieces (3 pieces across and 3 pieces down). All five
of the puzzles were turned on the vertical. Topps unintentionally
printed all of the card backs upside down, so you would have to turn
the puzzle pieces around in order to complete the puzzle and have the
character facing right-side up.

Each completed puzzle picture (one for
each color) was used for 2 card backs. The completed puzzle pictures
are shown above. I also created a diagram showing where each of
the 9 puzzle pieces should go, and I made a list that shows the card
numbers that go with each of the puzzles.